International Business Machines Corporation

Alan Hartman

Kenneth Nagin

Paul Regis Kram

Eitan D Farchi

Anuradha Bhamidipaty

Anshu Narendra Jain

Mila Keren

Yael Shaham-Gafni

Nidhi Rajshree

Andrei Kirshin

Sergey Olvovsky

Shmuel Ur

Aviad Zlotnick

Roy Emek

Doron Cohen

Avraham Harpaz

Guruduth Somasekhara Banavar

Gil Eliezer Shurek

Daniel Geist

Dmitri Pikus

Guy Sharon

Netta M Shani

Shiri Kremer-Davidson

Julia Rubin

Michael Veksler

Anshu N Jain

Ketki A Dhanesha

Inderpreet Thukral

Tal Haham

Shiri Kremer

Mel Shalev

Methods and arrangements for conducting corruption analysis of service designs. A service design is accepted. Corrupting factors within the service design are assessed, and a corruption susceptibility score is generated. An alternative service design is generated responsive to a corruption susceptibility score fulfilling predetermined criteria.

Automated corruption analysis of service designs

A method of telephone call management in process of service development that allows a user to model and create telephone call management schemes independent of telecommunications protocols and network layer details. The method of the invention operates by creating an abstract model of a telephone call life-cycle that is converted, using a set of communication threads, into executable code. Models in accordance with the method of the invention are constructed using an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for creating and developing telecom services that embodies the Telecom Service Domain Specific Language (TS-DSL) which is implemented as a Unified Modeling Language (UML) extension for the telecom domain. By this method, individuals without specialized knowledge of telecom related software programming and protocols can successfully design and implement telecom services that manages calls. The ease of implementation of the method also reduces design time and, therefore, time to market of the finished product.

Protocol independent telephony call lifecycle management scheme

Techniques for generating one or more artifacts for service delivery are provided. The techniques include receiving one or more service design inputs, using the one or more service design inputs to generate an internal representation of the service design, using the internal representation of the service to generate one or more artifacts of the service, and incorporating the one or more artifacts into the service design and outputting the service.

Automatically generating artifacts for service delivery

Methods and systems are provided for adding variability support for a modeling language. Developers may utilize the added support to transform a model written in a preexisting domain-specific modeling language for product line development in which there is structural and configurational diversity. A variability layer is incorporated into the model, which permits product developers to better use the language to model product line variants.

Variability layer for domain-specific modeling languages

A computer program product and a method for providing a graphical representation of a software, the method includes: receiving semantic concern defining information; populating at least one semantic concern, in response to the received semantic concern defining information; and associating between multiple elements in response to semantic relation information, if semantic concern relation information was previously received.

Method and computer program product for providing a representation of software modeled by a model

A test coverage tool provides output that identifies differences between the actual coverage provided by a test suite run on a program under test and the coverage criteria (e.g., the coverage criteria required by the test/development team management). The output from the test coverage tool is generated in the same language that was used to write the coverage criteria that are input to an automated test generator to create the test cases which form the test suite. As a result, the output from the coverage tool can be input back into the automated test generator to cause the generator to revise the test cases to correct the inadequacies. This allows iterative refinement of the test suite automatically, enabling automated test generation to be more effectively and efficiently used with more complex software and more complex test generation inputs. In preferred embodiments, test coverage analysis results of several different test suites, some manually generated and others automatically generated, are used to produce a streamlined automatically-generated test suite and/or to add missing elements to an automatically generated test-suite.

Method and system for integrating test coverage measurements with model based test generation

Middleware is validated using a two layered modeling strategy for the generation of test suites. A high level model of the syntax of the programming language used to program the middleware generates a series of high level abstract programs. These high level abstract programs then undergo two separate translations. First they are translated directly into actual test programs, which are expressed in the programming language of the middleware. Second, they are translated into second models of the high level abstract programs. Running the model based test generator again on the second models produces a set of suites of test cases, each test case consisting of data inputs and predicted results for one of the actual test programs. The actual test programs are run repetitively using the middleware execution engine. The results are compared with the predicted results, using a generic validation engine.

Recursive use of model based test generation for middleware validation

An execution engine synchronizes test suite execution to run multiple independent operations concurrently or in parallel. The execution engine operates by stepping through the test suite. At each step it runs the required number of independent operations and waits for their completion. It then checks the results, and continues to the next step of the test suite. If at any step, the actual results are different from the expected results, then the exact sequence that triggered the fault is known. The sequence can be repeated when a correction is provided for the fault. Furthermore, the execution engine allows the user to interactively step through a test case when debugging a fault. A synchronization pattern generator may be incorporated in the system to generate minimal numbers of repetitions of test cases to guarantee varying degrees of interaction coverage.

Model based test generation for validation of parallel and concurrent software

A method for solving a constraint satisfaction problem includes receiving a set of variables having respective input domains and a set of relations among the variables, and building a network of one or more hyper-arcs representative of the set of relations, each hyper-arc corresponding to one of the relations and linking nodes in the network corresponding to the variables that are subject to the relation. For each of the hyper-arcs, the variables are assembled in a hierarchy based on the relation corresponding to the hyper-arc. The input domains of the variables in the hierarchy are reduced, so as to determine respective output domains of the variables that are consistent with the relations.

Hyper-arc consistency in a contraint satisfaction network

The present invention enables the modeling of plural outcomes resulting from a single stimulus, thereby allowing for automated test generation for non-deterministic software. In accordance with the present invention, a method, system, and computer program product are disclosed for testing software having a non-deterministic outcome. In accordance with the present invention, a set of rules is created, each rule having an associated stimulus, a precondition computation, and a computation procedure to produce the set of all valid outcome states. Each valid outcome state models one of several states that may result from applying the stimulus to any state which satisfies the precondition computation. Using these models, a test generation program is executed against the set of rules to recursively expand each path associated with an outcome state of a rule and outputting a list of valid possible outcomes, then selecting sequences of stimuli in accordance with coverage goals set by the test engineer. A test execution engine is then run against the application under test applying the sequences of stimuli to the software and a list of observed states resulting from the application of the stimuli is compiled. Finally, the list of observed states is compared with the list of valid possible outcome states to identify defects (as well as to identify correct outcomes) in the application under test and ensure the attainment of the coverage goals.

Method, system, and computer program product for automated test generation for non-deterministic software using state transition rules

A design verification system generates a small set of test cases, from a finite state machine model of the application under test. The finite state machine is reduced by creating efficient samples of the inputs to the application under test which are prepared by combinatorial input parameter selection. The test cases are generated by finite state machine traversal of the reduced state machine, and tests interacting combinations of input parameters in an efficient way. The technique is integrated into a test generator based on a finite state machine. Using an extended language, partial rulesets are employed to instruct the test generator to automatically employ combinatorial input parameter selection during test generation. Another technique for test case generation is disclosed, which uses combinatorial selection algorithms to guarantee coverage of the system under test from the aspect of interaction between stimuli at different stages or transitions in the test case.

Reducing the complexity of finite state machine test generation using combinatorial designs

A system for automatic generation of test programs employs test generation foci linked to a finite state machine behavioral model of a software application under test to produce abstract test suites that are executed by an execution engine. The foci include directive expressions that tag coverage variables of the behavioral model. The execution engine operates until the tagged coverage variables have assumed all their possible values. Both the behavioral models and the foci are archivable and can be retrieved and reused independently.

Technique using persistent foci for finite state machine based software test generation

A method and system for displaying a resource schedule containing a plurality of objects in an N-level multiple hierarchy all of which objects are subject to a common dependency, comprising the steps of allocating different non-overlapping areas of a display device for each level of the resource schedules, and graphically displaying each level of the resource schedule in the respective area of the display device in synchronized relationship on a common axis representative of the common dependency. Editing tools are provided for allowing objects of the same level to be interchanged, objects of a given level i (where i<N) to be inserted into an object of a higher level (i&plus;1), and objects of a given level i (where i>1) to be disassembled into an object of a lower level (i&minus;1). The method and system are particularly suited for constructing and editing crew pairings for airlines and allow simple and efficient on-line, interactive manipulation of resources.

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Haifa, Israel

Alan Hartman